


just like anyone would bruise

by evewithanapple



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24888307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: The doctors assume that she fights them because she is troubled, because she is hopelessly insane. None seem to have considered that fighting is the sanest thing she could do.Mary on Blackwell's Island
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	just like anyone would bruise

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings for involuntary institutionalization and prisoner abuse, the nineteenth-century prison-industrial complex being generally terrible, and references to past sexual and physical child abuse.

No one comes to see her but the guards. The other patients are kept away from her; the nurses keep a wide berth, fearing that she’ll attack them, though she has no tools with which to do so. If she did, they would be right to fear. She fights tooth and nail when they take her to the ice baths, but with three guards holding her down, it’s not much of a fair fight. Afterwards, she’s deposited back in her cell in a sodden dress and not much else, left to freeze overnight. There is only one window, and it’s too high for her to see out of; it only casts a few weak rays of light on the floor, not enough to keep warm by. She shivers constantly.

So when the door of her cell clangs open and one of the guards says, “She’s in here,” she backs into the far corner of the room, hands balled into fists at her sides. If they’re taking her to the baths again, she promises herself, she’ll leave bite marks on every one of them who lays hands on her. Her dress is still damp from yesterday, her skin clammy underneath. The whole cell smells of mildew, and of the chamber pot that hasn’t been emptied in days. She plans to throw it at the next nurse who approaches.

But the person who steps through the cell door is neither nurse nor guard – nor, in fact, anyone she’s seen before. It’s a young man (no more than twenty-five, so far as she can guess) dressed smartly in coat and well-pressed trousers. A leather carrying case is tucked underneath his right arm. His shoes have picked up some of the asylum’s muck, but they shine underneath. He pauses just inside the cell, seemingly unconcerned at the door swinging closed behind him. “Hello, Mary.”

She’s not sure if he expects a response or if he knows she can’t and is speaking only for his own benefit. She makes no sound.

He takes a step towards her, and she cringes away, sliding along the back wall. He blinks at her, then crosses to the far wall. “I’ll stand here, if you prefer it.”

She _does_ prefer it, and is more than a little startled to hear her preferences taken into consideration. She offers a tiny, abortive dip of her head to show that she’s heard, and that seems to satisfy him.

“My name is Dr. Kreizler, Mary,” he says. His voice has an odd roll to it that she can’t place. “I am an alienist. Do you know what that is?”

This time, the jerk of her head is sharper, from side to side rather than up and down.

“I make a study of the mind,” he says, “and of human behaviour. I consult with the doctors here, and they described you as being especially – “ He pauses, seemingly searching for the least inflammatory word he can deploy. “- troubled.”

She huffs. Of course she’s troubled; but the doctors assume that she fights them _because_ she is troubled, because she is hopelessly insane. None seem to have considered that fighting is the sanest thing she could do. 

He looks around the cell, lip curling. “I can well understand being troubled,” he says, more to himself than to her, “in these lodgings. Florence Nightingale never saw such privation.” He looks back at her. “They also tell me you cannot speak.”

She nods again.

“Their assumption,” he continues, “is that, being unable to speak, you are also unable to reason. I find myself in doubt.” He locks eyes with her. “For if no one has attempted to speak with you, how can they understand your mental capacities? It’s the sort of intellectual laziness that any doctor who taught me would be ashamed to hear of. Although it appears that the running of this entire institution has been given over to apathy and negligence.”

At this point, Mary’s hands have unclenched from fists, though she cannot bring herself to relax her shoulders. She hopes the guard who let this man Kreizler in is still standing outside and can hear all this; she would very much like to see his reaction to being called lazy.

Dr. Kreizler takes a step towards her, and she takes another quick step along the wall. He raises both hands in submission. “I don’t intend to harm you, but I must at least be within arm’s reach. Is that all right?”

She cocks her head to the side. If she had a voice, she would ask him why he needs to be so close. As things stand, she’s not prepared to trust him that far.

“Tell me – “ He sets the case down, grimacing as he does it, and reaches down to remove something from it. “Have you been taught to read or write?”

She nods. It’s a half-truth: no one ever expounded the effort to actually teach her, but she spied on the other children’s lessons when she could, hiding behind the woodshed and scratching words in the dirt with a stick. Her handwriting is a sprawling mess, but she _can_ write.

“Excellent.” From the carrying case, he produces a slate and a piece of chalk. “If I set this down here, could you use it to answer a few questions?”

She considers this. She can’t imagine what questions he might want to ask of her; no one else here has ever shown the slightest interest in her beyond what their jobs demand. But he also hasn’t moved any closer, or done anything to make her think he means her harm. He’s just standing there, waiting for her response.

She nods. He sets the slate and chalk down on the floor and backs up several steps. She eases away from the wall, close enough to pick up the slate and chalk, then darts back as soon as they’re safely in hand. He hasn’t harmed her yet, but that doesn’t mean she intends to take any chances.

“Thank you, Mary,” he says. He reaches his right arm across his body to rub at his left, grimacing. She follows the movement and notices that his left hand is hanging at his side, bent in an odd, claw-like grip. Maybe she’ll use her slate to ask about that.

“Mary,” he says, “can you tell me why you’re here?”

She turns the slate towards herself and scrawls an answer. It’s not easy: quite apart from the fact that she’s out of practice, the cold of her cell is making her hands shake. Her fingers are all purplish-grey, her nails pale blue. He follows the movement of her hands with his eyes as she writes.

When she’s done, she flips the slate over so he can see. I KILLED MY FATHER.

“So you did,” he says. He sounds satisfied. “Do you remember the act itself?”

She rubs her earlier answer out with her sleeve, writing YES in its place. He nods. “And could you describe to me, precisely, what it is you remember about it?”

She frowns at that. Once again, she scrubs out her previous answer, writing a new one in its place. WHY?

“Ah,” he says. His eyes gleam. “ _Why_ is precisely the question I intend to answer.”

* * *

He assures her when he leaves that he’ll be back again soon, but she hardly believes him. She’s still not entirely sure what to make of the man; he hadn’t attempted to touch her at all during his visit, just stood several feet away and asked her questions, apparently unruffled by any of her answers. Yes, she remembered precisely what she had done that day. Yes, she had planned to do it ahead of time, making sure no one else was in the house before she acted. No, she doesn’t regret it for a moment. She expected some sort of reaction from him at that last answer, but received none; he only nodded, face placid as though she was reciting the alphabet. His eyes were the only part of him that remained animated at all times, fixed on her face with a fascination that she can’t puzzle out. For whatever obscure reason of his own, he finds her interesting. She can’t guess why, and it perturbs her more than a little. She’s dealt with cruelty and indifference all her life; this sudden interest is unnerving. A day goes by, then two, then three with no sign of him, and she begins to relax – as much as anyone can in this place. She is still cold, and lonely, and tormented by the nurses and guards, but these are all familiar problems. She knows how to survive them.

Nearly a week has passed by the time he does return. It’s hard to tell, exactly; there’s no way to trace time in here, and she’s more or less given up trying to remember the date. She can tell the season, roughly, by the brief excursions she and the other patients are permitted out onto the lawn. It’s winter now. It was late summer when she was brought here. She thinks it’s been six months, but she’s not sure. Depending on the precise date, she may have turned seventeen at some point. Either way, with no regular comings and goings to mark the passage of time and no hope of anything changing, it doesn’t occupy a great deal of her attention.

Once again, the guard lets him in. It’s a different guard today than it was the last time, but he still gives the doctor a dirty look as he closes the cell door. That doesn’t mean much. Everyone here hates each other, and it never makes much difference in how they treat her.

“I apologize for the delay,” the doctor says to her after the door is closed. “My duties in the city kept me busier than I’d anticipated.” He sets the slate and chalk in the middle of the room again, next to a shapeless bundle of cloth. Mary eyes the latter suspiciously.

“It’s for you,” he says, and she takes it. Shaking the cloth out, she discovers he’s brought her a cardigan and a pair of wool gloves with fingers that end at the knuckle. When she shrugs the cardigan on, she discovers it was made for someone significantly taller and wider than her: it falls past her knees, and is baggy enough that she can wrap it around herself twice. She huddles inside it, and gives the doctor a questioning look.

“I noticed your hands shook as you were writing,” he explains, “and thought it would be easier for us both if you could write with a steady hand.”

That explains the gloves, at least – but not the cardigan. She clutches it around herself more tightly. Perhaps – probably – he’ll take it back when he leaves, but at least she can be warm until then. She inclines her head slightly towards him by way of thanks, and he seems to understand.

“Now, then,” he says, the familiar gleam of interest returning to his eyes. “Shall we?”

Again, the endless questions. Did you ever set anything on fire before you killed your father? No, only the stove. Did you ever want to? No. Did you ever want to do harm to anyone? No. Have you ever harmed an animal for pleasure? No. On, and on, and on. She answers each question briefly, and he moves on to the next one without pause. The exercise illuminates nothing more about what it is he hopes to achieve, but it passes the time.

When he stands to leave, she begins to tug the gloves off. He stops her with a shake of her head. “Those are yours.”

She still hasn’t returned the slate and chalk, so she scribbles her reply. NOT ALLOWED.

His expression tightens. “You will be,” is all he says. He takes the slate and chalk – once again, she places it in the middle of the room and backs away so that she won’t have to risk being within arm’s length of him – and nods to her before he leaves. The cell door is barred, not solid, so she hears him say sharply to the guard, “Those clothes belong to her, and I intend that she be permitted to keep them.” The guard grumbles, but doesn’t make any move to come into the cell and take the cardigan or gloves. So the doctor has some power over the goings-on here. That’s something to consider. The guards don’t even obey the regular doctors, and those men are older than Dr. Kreizler by a significant measure. She spends the rest of the day puzzling over this, and comes to no conclusion except that he must be rich.

He comes again the next week, and the next. It becomes a fixed point for her to measure time around: five days and nights between each visit. For the first time, life has a sense of structure to it. Better than that, she has something to look forward to. These interrogations aren’t entertaining, at least not in any traditional sense – but they’re the only occasion on which someone speaks to her with no implied threat in their tone. For that alone, she values them.

Still, the questions begin to frustrate her after awhile. They seem to frustrate him as well: more than once, she sees him start to speak and then check himself and move on. She wonders what will happen if she refuses to answer. Will he simply stop asking and leave? Surely he wouldn’t abandon whatever goal he’s pursuing so easily, after all these weeks. But she still doesn’t understand what that goal is, or how these interrogations are meant to achieve it.

At last, she grows impatient enough to push back. She picks up the slate and starts writing while he’s still mid-question, but he doesn’t seem to notice until she holds it up. WHAT DO YOU WANT?

He stops. Stares at her. She expected some quick response, a dismissal, a show of irritation – something with a solid certainty behind it. He’s never shown anything less. But he just goes on looking at her instead. He looks for so long that she begins to itch with impatience waiting for an answer.

At last, he says, “What is it you think I want?”

She wipes the slate clean – after the first meeting, he’d provided her with a rag to do so, so she no longer has to use her sleeve – and writes, TO ASK QUESTIONS.

He laughs. The sound surprises her, and then she is surprised at her own surprise. It had not consciously occurred to her before how terribly sober he looks at all times. She doesn’t think she’s even seen him smile. Of course, there’s little reason to smile in a place like this; but she’s heard the guards and nurses laugh among themselves before. Dr. Kreizler is cut from a different cloth, it seems – serious, focused, perhaps a little self-important.

“I don’t want to ask questions,” he says, “or at least, that is not my primary purpose. What I want is to hear your answers.”

She scowls at him. WHAT FOR?

“What for,” he repeats. She notices he’s rubbing his left arm again, apparently unconscious of his action. “Do you remember, I told you I made a study of the mind?”

She nods.

“I do not – “ He stops. Purses his lips. “That is, my study is not – an organic one. I am not a surgeon. I do not cut into the brain. There are those – many – who believe that all mental maladies can be explained by examining the vivisected organ, but I see their approach as unfortunately narrow-minded. I believe that more can be gained from studying the living consciousness than attempting to piece together a mind only after it has been broken.” He spreads one arm wide, leaving the other to dangle. “So you see, I am interested in what you think. I believe something may be learned from it.”

She stays where she is, seated on her cot, as she digests this. The truth is, he isn’t interested in what she thinks, no matter what he may believe about his own intentions. He’s asked about her thoughts in passing, but never probed any deeper than whether or not a particular idea had occurred to her. If he wanted to know what she thinks, he could ask at any time. He could ask her _why_ she thinks she did what she did – it would be more productive than these endless, meandering interviews. He doesn’t ask, because he doesn’t care to.

No one has ever cared to ask what she thinks; no one has even considered her capable of thought. She’s been a beast of burden all her life. Dr. Kreizler rises above the others she’s known simply because he pays her more than a fleeting moment’s attention, but that doesn’t mean he sees her. Not really.

Her hand hovers above the slate, chalk powder dusting her fingertips as she tries to decide what to say. All the answers she’s given so far have been brief, and that’s for practical reasons: the slate is too small to write anything more than a few short words. Although she wouldn’t admit it, her pride is at stake too: she knows the rudiments of writing, but she’s well aware that both her hand and her spelling leave a great deal to be desired, and she doesn’t like to have that particular deficiency on display. Eventually, she comes up with an answer in brief and writes it down, moving as slowly as she can to make the letters come out properly.

YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. NOT ME.

He goes on staring at her. She’s a little afraid that she’s somehow stunned him into silence again, and it will be several more minutes before he begins to speak. She gestures at him, a sharp and unmistakeable movement of her hand. _Well?_

He’s rubbing his left arm again. It’s an understandable act, on the face of it – the damp in here makes her bones ache, and she’s never so much as twisted an ankle. Several of the guards have been known to complain loudly of old war wounds on rainy days. But it doesn’t seem to her that he touches his arm when it pains him. It seems he does it habitually whenever she says something to trouble him, returning to an old trouble to distract from a new one. Like prodding a sore tooth over and over because the ache is soothing in its familiarity.

The guard bangs his truncheon against the door of the cell, and they both jump. “Mealtime’s in ten minutes,” he says. “No more visitors. Superintendent says the patients are to line up.”

Dr. Kreizler opens his mouth as if to argue, then apparently thinks better of it. “Thank you, Mary,” he says to her, and holds his hand out for the slate and chalk. “I’ll be back soon.”

She nods. When the cell door bangs behind him, she’s surprised to feel a sting of disappointment.

* * *

The guards here bore easily, and when they are bored, the patients are the ones who suffer for it. Dr. Kreizler may have intervened on her behalf in the matter of the gloves and cardigan, but he can hardly keep watch. It’s not long before one of the guards, restive and irritable, bangs the door to her cell open and wakes her from her half-doze. “You.” He points at her. “Give me that. It’s not in the uniform.”

She shakes her head, hands dug deep into the cardigan pockets. This belongs to her. It’s the one tiny inch she can claim for herself in this place, and the guard can’t have it.

“I said _give it_.” He advances on her, snapping his fingers the way he might at a dog. Mary presses herself into the corner, legs trembling beneath her. There’s nowhere she can run; he’s too broad for her to dodge around. All she can do is hunch her shoulders against his approach, feet spread and planted firmly on the floor. She won’t give up without a fight.

He reaches her, grabbing for the cardigan. She yanks back, stumbling and nearly falling with the sudden motion. He grabs again, this time catching her – not the cardigan, but the collar of her dress. He hauls on it, and the top three buttons fly free from their moorings, pinging across the damp flagstone floor. She’s been given no shift to wear underneath; her collarbone is bare. The guard grunts, hauling on the cardigan again, and manages to yank it away from her shoulders. She stands in place, trembling, and he leers at her. “There you go.”

She lashes out. It’s not a conscious decision, but a muscle memory, cultivated over many painful years. She lashes out at him with her fists, catching him by surprise with the first blow so that she actually manages to punch him in the nose before he reacts. His face blooms red, and she realizes almost immediately what a stupid mistake she’s made. The guards here will beat patients over nothing more than an insolent look, and she’s just offered much more than that. He’s going to hurt her Badly.

He slaps her, open-handed, and sends her flying. Before she can recover, he strides over and swings a foot towards her ribs. She grabs his boot and he stumbles, nearly falling. With a snarl, he bends to grab her by her ruined collar, hauling her up so that she’s left kicking in midair. In a last act of desperation, she twists her neck until her muscles scream, and sinks her teeth into the meat of his hand.

It’s enough of a shock that he drops her, and she knows better than to wait for him to recover. She takes off, sprinting for the door; with the guard still in her cell, she makes it out and into the hall. Other patients in their cells scream as she runs, but she doesn’t even make it to the door at the end of the hall before a hand closes on her shoulder and yanks her backwards.

She doesn’t think during the aftermath. Another hard-earned skill: she knows how to retreat from her surroundings when they become too painful to be borne. Let them hurt her. What are bruises and broken bones compared to what she’s already been through? If the guards think she can be broken in, then someone should warn them about what she did to the last man who tried.

If she was isolated before (and she was) it gets worse afterwards. She’s not permitted to dine with the other patients, but has food shoved through the cell door at her. They don’t take her to the baths, which she appreciates at first, but tires of quickly as sweat makes her skin tacky and her clothes begin to smell sour The cardigan is, of course, gone, so she’s left to wrap herself in her blanket to sleep at night, listening for the shrieks of other patients down the hall. She hadn’t realized how lonely her cell was until she was forbidden to leave it.

So when Dr. Kreizler reappears the next week, she greets him with no small amount of relief. There’s shame in it too – she doesn’t like being seen like this – but the prospect of a friendly face outweighs her pride. Pride is the first thing to go, in here.

He steps across the threshold. Stops. Stares at her. She doesn’t know precisely how bad she looks, but she can guess. The day before, she unbuttoned her dress so that she could stare at the purple and yellow bruises that spread up and down her ribcage like rotted flowers. She’s sure her face looks no better.

“They said – “ He rubs a hand over his face. He’s growing a beard, she notices; it makes him look older, hides the boyish round of his chin. “I was given to understand that you’d attacked a guard. How that could possibly – how you could end up in this condition, if – “ He breathes sharply through his nose and sets his case down, a fair bit harder than is strictly necessary. “I understand you’d rather I stayed back, but I would like to examine your injuries to ensure that there’s no serious damage. Is that all right?”

She nods, shuffling sideways on the cot to make room for him. At this point, if he hasn’t hurt her yet, he’s probably not going to. Besides, she’s never known a man who would ask permission before laying hands on her, so she supposes that has to count for something.

He sits on the cot beside her and brings his hand up to her face, tilting her chin this way and that. Pain blooms where his fingers press against her jawline, and she hisses. He winces. “I apologize, but I need to check for broken bones. Could you open and close your jaw for me?”

She obeys. There’s a clicking noise when she does it, but it doesn’t hurt any worse than the rest of her face, and he doesn’t look especially perturbed by the results. He releases her jaw, then hesitates. “Are there any other injuries?”

She nods, gesturing to her ribcage. He places a hand over the place where she points, pressing gently down. The dull ache that’s been burning under her skin all week intensifies, but not unbearably so. The pressure of his hand is too gentle for that, fingers moving carefully over her protruding ribs. His eyes are cast down, intent on his work.

No one has ever touched her gently before. She’s known slaps and curses and kicks, been driven to her knees at her father’s pleasure and been tossed around like a rag doll by the guards. She’s been held under water and had her hair pulled out by the roots with a comb, been pushed and screamed at and mocked by those around her when they were in foul tempers, and ignored when they didn’t have need of her. No one’s ever asked before they touched her. No one’s ever checked her for injuries, as though the state of her body mattered. No one’s ever cared.

She twists her head to the side so he won’t see the tears burning in her eyes, but it’s too late. She’s lucky, though: he doesn’t guess at the cause. “I know it’s painful,” he says, “but a broken rib going untreated would cause greater pain in the future.” He takes his hand away. “You don’t appear to have broken any bones, though. Only a great number of bruises.” She looks up in time to see his face tighten. “How they call this any sort of hospital while they let the guards abuse their patients in this way, I cannot account for.”

She just shrugs. He may be a doctor, but if he thinks this place is intended as an actual hospital, he’s not a very smart one.

“I’ve been considering – “ He gets up off the cot and moves to stand across from her. He clears his throat. “I’ve been considering our last conversation, Mary.”

He pauses, like he’s waiting for a response. He hasn’t taken the slate out yet, so all she can do is nod.

“It occurred to me that you may have had a point.” He sounds so absurdly proud of himself for coming to this conclusion, she has to bite the inside of her cheek to hold back a smile. “That is, I’ve asked you any number of questions in our time together, but you’ve had no chance to ask any questions of me. If I am to expect your trust, it is only fair that I – submit to – the same.” He reaches down into the case and retrieves the slate and chalk, passing them across to her. “What do you want to know?”

She drums her fingers against the slate, considering. She really _hadn’t_ thought of asking him any questions, though she wasn’t sure what she would have chosen to do instead. Given that she doesn’t have any ideas of her own, she’s willing to accept his offer. She thinks for a minute, then writes her question out and flips the slate around. WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

“Ah!” He looks – surprised? – to see the question she’s asked. Maybe he hasn’t realized she can hear the accent that shades his words. “Germany, originally, though I came here when I was still quite young. Do you know where Germany is?”

She shakes her head. Her knowledge of geography is all but nil. All she knows is that her father met her mother “out West,” and brought her back to New York with him, where Mary and her siblings were born. She’s never set foot outside the city, let alone the country.

“It’s a country in Europe,” he says, “between the Alps and the Baltic Sea, though I believe my ancestors never strayed far from Cologne. I don’t recall much of my childhood years there, but I went back a few years ago to attend a conference at Heidelberg University. It’s a beautiful country, though the people can be – “ A shadow passes over his face. “Cold.”

She tries to picture it, and can’t. A seaside town, perhaps; he mentioned a sea. But the only ocean she’s ever seen are the choppy grey waters around the island, so even that mental picture can only be drawn in the broadest possible strokes. She bends over the slate again, then turns it over. YOU SPEAK IT?

“German, you mean?” He smiles, just a little bit. “ _Ja, aber nicht so oft_. That is to say, yes, but not very often. There aren’t a great many other immigrants in my social circle, you see, and my parents - ” There’s that shadow again. “English was spoken in our household, when I was a boy.”

She’s a little surprised to hear the strange syllables coming from his mouth: his voice is so soft, but the language itself sounds like an especially phlegmatic cough. The only languages other than English she’s ever heard were her mother’s occasional Kansa and the Gaelic that would drift to her over the neighbours’ fence. Languages interest her, for all she will never able to speak any of them. Standing apart from it all, observing, she feels like the eye of a hurricane.

Being speechless has sharpened her talent for observation. She’d traded one skill for another and learned to cultivate it for her own survival. And she recognizes the shadow on the doctor’s face: she’s felt it cross her own often enough. Not bothering with slate, she points to his left arm, head tilted. There’s no need for writing to communicate what she’s asking.

He looks down. His left hand trembles, like he’s trying to flex his fingers, but nothing happens. “A childhood accident,” he says, “with unfortunately long-lasting consequences.”

She shakes her head at him. He’s lying. She’d credit her own powers of observation for realizing it, but it doesn’t take any especial skill to notice. She wonders if others are fooled by his pretensions, or if the society he moves in is held together with a glue of polite fictions.

She thinks, for a moment, that he won’t answer, that she’s pushed too hard and too far. His hand goes on trembling. She folds her own hands in her lap and waits.

At length, he says, “There were certain – ideas of discipline – that is – “ He takes a deep breath. “I do not hold that corporal punishment offers any positive influence on a child’s behaviour. It may temporarily cow the child into submission, but rule by fear only creates condition by which a person may learn that violence is the only option available to them. It is a deeply short-sighted philosophy.” He blinks. Blinks again. “I base my opinion on my studies of the developing brain, but also on personal experience. I have risen above the circumstances of my upbringing, but . . .”

He trails off into silence. She wonders how he would complete the sentence, if he could bring himself to. But he understands the way his parents behaved? But he still feels the pull towards violence? But he remains marked by what happened when he was a child?

She has no scar to show for her upbringing. Her father was more careful than that, and her mother’s blows only left bruises. If she spoke of what had been done to her – if she had the means to - no one would believe it. They would look at her, whole and unmarked, and say: of course the girl’s a fantasist as well as an idiot. What can you expect?

She draws the cloth across the slate and writes in a slow and careful hand. When she raises it to the doctor’s eyes again, it reads, YOU COULD HAVE KILLED THEM.

He inhales sharply, raising his gaze to meet hers’. She locks eyes with him and refuses to look away. If he turns away from her truth, let him; but she won’t be the first to break.

“Why your father,” he says, “and not your mother? Was it only him?”

She lets out her breath in a rush. NOT THE SAME HURT.

“What kind, then?”

She lowers the slate to her lap. She can’t write it down. Even if she knew the words, she couldn’t force herself to form them. She’s lived with the foulness of it for so long, it’s leached into her blood and bones; it runs too deep for her to purge with words. Trying to rip it out would tear her in half. Instead, she meets the doctor’s eyes, then slowly, deliberately, pats the cot beside her. Then she touches her hand to her chest. Short of a more graphic pantomime, it’s the best she can do; she just has to hope that he’s intelligent enough to piece together her gestures with their conversation and make the connection between them.

His brow furrows at he looks at her, and she’s afraid for a moment that she’s done it all for nothing. But she sees the moment awareness comes over him: the sudden pallor of his face, the thinning of his mouth, the way his good hand clenches into a fist against his knee. He doesn’t look faint, or sick, or any of the other reactions she’d feared: she doesn’t have the strength to comfort anyone else while they digest her own hurts. He only looks grim.

“And you didn’t – “ He inhales. “Of course not. You couldn’t, could you? And he would have – if he was careful – “ His mouth twists. “Yes. I see.”

She can only half-follow his train of thought, but she doesn’t need more than that. He knows. It’s the first time anyone has known besides her and her father (though she thought sometimes that her mother must suspect) and it twists something in her chest. It’s not as if anyone could see her as lower than she already was; the stain on her nonexistent reputation hardly concerns her. But to have someone look at her and _know_ what was done to her, know the silent scream that built in her chest for years before she finally broke under the weight of it – it feels as though the ground has suddenly vanished from beneath her feet. She’s not falling, but she is floating.

“Mary,” he says, “you never had an advocate, did you? That is, you were never brought to trial?”

She answers with a shake of her head. She’d gone straight from the jail cell in the police station to the asylum. She didn’t even appear before a judge. A doctor had come to her and performed an examination – a much more perfunctory affair than what Dr. Kreizler’s been doing – and declared her to be hopelessly, dangerously, insane. From there, it had been a wagon’s ride to the ferry, a ferry ride to Blackwell’s Island (she had been sick all over herself, as they hadn’t let her go to the side of the boat) and then her cell. Nothing more.

“You ought to have,” he says. “There are procedures to be followed – questions should have been asked – “ He shakes his head. “Mary, could you do something for me?”

She nods.

“Be patient,” he says. “Be patient and wait awhile. The wheels of the city bureaucracy turn slowly, and I can make no promises, but if I can reach the ears of men who hold sway over the decisions made here, I ought to be able to secure your release.”

She can’t possibly have heard him correctly. She only stares. She committed murder, and in cold blood – no one could deny that. The only thing that kept her from the gallows was the doctor’s pronouncement that she was insane. If she were to be set free from Blackwell’s, what could possibly happen to her after that? A cell in The Tombs?

“Self-defence may justify murder under the law,” he says; he must have read her disbelief in her face. “If the facts of your case were to be presented before a jury, the possibility of acquittal is very real.” He runs a hand through his hair. “ _Had_ you been tried by a jury when you were first arrested, the case would have been reviewed by the advocate and the prosecutor. As that didn’t happen, I don’t know precisely how the courts would proceed with your case now. It may be that you would be set free with no further trial. I won’t know until I can arrange – well. There are meetings to be had. It will be slow, as I say, but the possibility is there.”

 _Slow_ means very little to her; the passage of time in her cell has already collapsed in on itself, so why would she object to another long wait? The only difference now is that there may be something to look forward to at the end of all this. When she had made the decision to kill her father, all she had seen in her future was a noose or a prison cell; the idea of a life outside these walls is still too foreign for her to grasp. The thought of it sits heavily on her chest. But it’s something.

She’s borne plenty in her life. She can bear a wait.

* * *

It is, as he promised, a slow process. He doesn’t visit as often, now, but she can hardly bear him any ill will for it; not if the end result is her release. It seems to her that the guards hate her more now, but that could either be owing to Dr. Kreizler’s work, or the fact that she bit one of them a few weeks ago. Either way, she bears it. The future, which had always been a haze in her mind, is beginning to take shape. Someday – someday soon – she may walk free outside these walls, eat bread with butter that hasn’t gone rancid, bathe in hot water, look through a window without bars. With that possibility before her, how can the glares of the guards hurt her?

It’s nearly a month after Dr. Kreizler first promised to help her that she’s hauled unceremoniously out of her cell and deposited in the same hall where she’d been examined when she first arrived. Six men sit behind a long table at one end of the room, and she’s prodded to stand in front of them by a scowling nurse. She looks around, but Dr. Kreizler is nowhere to be seen; the room is full of strangers.

“Miss Palmer,” one of them men – she recognizes him vaguely as a doctor who’s visited the asylum before – says brusquely. “You’ve been brought before us to account for the murder you committed on July 17 of 1884. The physician who examined you previously noted that you were incapable of speech or of rational thought, but Dr. Kreizler has claimed that you are capable of communicating with gestures and with the written word. Am I to understand that he is correct?”

He doesn’t sound especially happy with Dr. Kreizler, she thinks, and that surely won’t go well for her. She nods anyway.

“Good.” The doctor’s scowl belies his words. “With this in mind, I will put to you a series of questions, to which you may nod or shake your head in response. We hope to get to the bottom of Dr. Kreizler’s claims about your case, but we will not countenance any dissembling on your part. Am I understood?”

 _Perfectly_ , she thinks. She nods again.

Without any further preamble, the doctor launches into a series of questions, none of which bear any resemblance to the once Dr. Kreizler has asked of her over the past several weeks. He wants her to confirm her name, her date of birth, her parents’ names, how many siblings she has. He wants to know whether or not she’s ever seen a doctor before her arrest (no) and whether she’s ever heard voices or seen things that weren’t there (also no.) By the time he finally gets around to asking about her father, the endless barrage of questions has numbed her to the point where the sudden change in direction hardly rouses her.

“Your father was a schoolteacher, is that right?”

A nod.

“And your mother kept house? With your assistance?”

Another nod.

The doctor taps one of his fingers against the table in front of him. “Miss Palmer, your father was a man of good standing and reputation in his community.”

That’s not a question, so she makes no reply.

“We have discovered no evidence that he was anything other than a principled and hardworking man.” The doctor frowns. “However, I have been given to understand that you have made serious accusations against him – accusations of which, obviously, there is no proof other than your own word. With that in mind, think carefully before you make your next reply.”

She bites the inside of her cheek. It doesn’t take a mind-reader to see which way the doctor’s opinion is swaying; he doesn’t want to believe her, and she hasn’t even said anything yet. What is the point of this entire inquisition if they’re just going to bundle her back into her cell when it’s all over?

“Miss Palmer,” the doctor says, “when you killed your father, did you consider him a threat to your continued safety and well-being?”

She didn’t expect the question to be worded that way, but there’s nothing in it that she objects to. She nods.

“Had your father previously done harm to you?”

Nod.

“Had this harm been done many times? Over a course of several years?”

Nod.

“Do you claim that your father sexually violated you?”

Placed in those terms, it seems almost clinical: a diagnosis applied at distance. It doesn’t begin to encompass what he did, what it meant. But it’s at least an acknowledgement. She nods.

Several of the men around the table shift in their seats, exchanging uncomfortable glances. Did they not know before they entered what she was going to say? The thought gives her hope: if they hadn’t known, then they hadn’t had the chance to make up their minds.

The main doctor goes on asking questions, most of them variations on the first. Had her father done this many times? Had he done any other injury to her – anything that might have left a mark? Had she tried to tell anyone what was happening, anyone who could testify on her behalf? Had she been offered any enticement to make these claims now? Had Dr. Kreizler put the idea in her head?

The last question almost made her laugh. Had _he_ put the idea in _her_ head? Neither he nor any of his colleagues have the imagination to concoct such a story and feed it to her. Still, it’s a good sign that he’s asking: it means he thinks she couldn’t have come up with the idea on her own. If he’s convinced of that, and she can make him believe that no one else planted the story in her head, then maybe . . .

By the time her interrogation is over, she’s exhausted. Part of it is just from standing for so long, but the act of answering their questions has taken more out of her than she thought possible. She’s almost grateful to be ushered back to her cell, though being left alone with her thoughts for the night is less than comforting. There are things she’s tried not to remember that she’s had cause to think about a great deal over the past few weeks, and they make for sleepless nights.

Dr. Kreizler finally appears, briefly, two days after her interrogation. “I apologize that I couldn’t be there,” he says to her, “but it was convened rather quickly, and no word was sent. It seems to have gone well, though, from what I’ve gathered.”

None of this surprises her; based on the demeanour of the men she’d faced, she wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if they’d intentionally neglected to tell Dr. Kreizler when the meeting was to take place. Instead of saying as much, she takes the slate and writes, WHAT NOW?

“Now, we wait for their decision,” he says. “It’s possible that they’ll demand a trial, but it doesn’t seem especially likely. The greater possibility is that they’ll decide between keeping you here and letting you go free.”

She spends a moment turning this over in her mind. The possibility of freedom has been so remote for so long, she never made any concrete plans for what life after Blackwell’s Island would look like. She’s had cause to reconsider in the days since she faced the doctors, and come to the conclusion that the world off the island holds very few possibilities for her. Her mother would slam the door in her face if Mary ever tracked her down; she has no other family; with no voice, she could hardly find a position. There’s only one person in the world she trusts to help her, and he’s standing in front of her now.

She turns the slate over. TAKE ME WITH YOU.

His brow furrows. “Take you where?”

TO WORK. He still looks confused, so she adds, I CAN CLEAN. COOK. KEEP HOUSE.

“I’m sure you _can_ , but do you really want – “ She can see him thinking, coming to the same realizations she reached weeks ago. “You don’t need to trade work for housing. You would be under my protection regardless, but you ought to have a proper education.”

She just shrugs. An education would be nice, but it won’t keep her fed or sheltered. If she choice were presented, she would pick honest work over a classroom any day of the week. WHAT FOR?

He looks faintly offended at that. She supposes it’s not a surprise: someone who studied enough to be accorded the title of _doctor_ must pursue education at least somewhat for the love of it. He drums the fingers of his good hand against his leg – another nervous habit, she’s noticed, but not one that signifies as much distress as the rubbing of his bad arm. “All right, then. If that’s truly what you want.”

The question of what she _wants_ has never held much significance in her life. Truth be told, it still doesn’t: her first priority will always be survival. Whatever comforts she picks up along the way will be nice, but they’ll never make her happier than the knowledge that she’s safe. If she’s released, she’ll be free, secure, and under the roof of someone who – though she’s not sure at all that he really understands her – is the only person who’s ever taken an interest in her wellbeing. What more does she need?

* * *

Things seem to progress quickly after that. She’s taken up marking the days in little scratches on the wall of her cell, just above her cot: eighty-four days since Dr. Kreizler first arrived, fourty-two since he first promised to intervene on her behalf, twenty-three since she was seen by the panel of doctors. For the first time, she feels the stirrings of impatience. Her life is ready to begin, if the men who control her future would only _move_.

In the end, it’s neither Dr. Kreizler nor the asylum doctors who tell her she’s being set free. One of the nurses comes to her cell, unlocking the door and beckoning her out. “So,” she says, “it seems you’re leaving us.”

 _Now_? For a brief moment, Mary’s too startled to move. She’s imagined this moment dozens of times, but it had never been so anticlimactic in her head. The nurse doesn’t meet her eyes, but she doesn’t scowl at her either. She seems prepared to wash her hands of Mary entirely, and Mary is more than happy to let her. “I’m to walk you to the gate,” she says, “and see you off.” Before Mary can stop to wonder what will happen after that, the nurse adds, “there’s someone waiting there to pick you up and take you on the ferry.” Mary’s already out the door and halfway down the hall when the nurse adds, “you have time to say your goodbyes, if you like.”

But Mary doesn’t have any goodbyes to say: she was kept from befriending any of the other patients, and the guards are no friends of hers. The only lingering trace of her in her cell is the marks she left on the walls. Blackwell’s Island has been a way stop, a year of treading water that she’s now being given the opportunity to leave behind. She has no intention of lingering.

The nurse just sighs and steps out ahead of her, unlocking each door as they come to them. Mary had never realized before how many locked doors she was being kept behind; she counts at least six before they come to the front doors of the asylum. No one gives them a second glance as they go. It almost seems unreal; Mary’s half-afraid that someone will come running to pull her back, insisting that a mistake has been made and she can’t leave after all. But no one comes. The nurse opens the front doors, and Mary is nearly blinded by the full force of daylight. She puts a hand up to shield her eyes and looks out at the blue expanse of the sky, the newly budded trees reaching up above the asylum’s walls. None of them have flowered yet, but she can see a few blooms nearly fit to burst, ready to unfurl in riotous colour.

“Suppose I don’t need to show you the rest of the way,” the nurse says. Mary doesn’t bother to look at her, just steps out onto the pathway. She hears the door shut behind her with a clang, and feels it down to her bones. This chapter in her life is closing. She’s never heard a sound more satisfying.

She takes a step onto the path, then another. The yard isn’t large, and she can see the gate from where she’s standing. There’s a figure on the other side, black-suited, still against the backdrop of the sky and sea. He’s waiting for her.

Mary smiles, and starts to run.

**Author's Note:**

> Kansa (the language Mary remembers her mother speaking) is a language spoken by the Kaw Nation, a Native American tribe located in Oklahoma and Kansas. The show gives us basically nothing about where Mary's family came from, so I pretty much made her backstory up out of whole cloth and Wikipedia deep dives.
> 
> btw, did you know that the Plains Nations have had a fully developed and functional sign language for hundreds of years pre-contact? [It's true](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Indian_Sign_Language)!


End file.
